Dig a hole and tourists will come
Residents of Greensburg, Kan., say they have the world’s largest hand-dug well. So is that a tourist attraction?
Sure, why not?
“Back in 1887, laborers who were paid 50 cents a day used pickaxes, shovels and buckets on pulleys to excavate a perfect circle 32 feet wide and 109 feet deep. Passers-by have been admiring their handiwork ever since,” says the Wall Street Journal.
In 2008, a popular vote online tabbed Greensburg’s Big Well as one of the Eight Wonders of Kansas, on par with the Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson (and a cut above the town of West Mineral’s star attraction — "Big Brutus," an enormous electric coal shovel,
“But proud as that moment was, it can’t compare to this: The Big Well is going big time,” the newspaper says.
The citizens of Greensburg are planning a $3 million Big Well museum. They announced a contract with a high-profile design team, Ralph Appelbaum Associates Inc. of New York.
Greensburg, population just under 1,000, now appears on the verge of becoming a big tourist star after a depression of sorts.
In the 1970s and ’80s, as many as 75,000 visitors a year would stop by Greensburg to peer into the murky water. They would drop a coin (or, oddly, a shoe) for good luck, maybe even buy a $2 ticket and descend 105 steps to the claustrophobic depths.
In recent years, however, drivers whizzing past on Highway 400 have been less prone to pull over, despite a series of promotional billboards stretched out over 50 miles to build excitement.
Eager to reinvigorate the town’s biggest tourist attraction (there’s also a 1,000-pound meteorite, discovered at a local farm), voters in 2006 approved a half-cent sales tax to fund improvements to the Big Well. But before the money could be put to use, disaster struck.
A massive tornado blowing 200-mile-per-hour winds barreled through the small city. Eleven people were killed and 95 percent of the town destroyed.
Ever since, Greensburg has been rebuilding to become a “green” town. The new City Hall, hospital, school and John Deere tractor dealership have been built to top energy-efficiency standards.
There’s a composting toilet on display in an empty field, and a solar-powered shower as well.
By David Wilkening
David
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